Review: 'Love Life' created by Sam Boyd.
- aligeorgia11
- Sep 30, 2020
- 4 min read
Created By: Sam Boyd
Starring: Anna Kendrick, Zöe Chao, Peter Vack & Sasha Compère.
Streaming: HBO Max & BBC iPlayer
I Would Say: 3.5/5
A 10 part mini-series focusing on the love life of Derby (Anna Kendrick.) As she works her way through all the guys she's ever had feelings for or at least had something memorable happen with you get to see how she handles life; with the help of her 2 roommates, this is a little glimpse into what modern dating can be like, life isn't glamorous and people are not always who they are when you first meet and sometimes you have grown apart and the person you think you love is just a hairy beekeeper with mountains of credit card debt.
I do not think that there will ever be a moment that I choose to watch a random trailer of a random romantic themed film or programme on Youtube and I do not suddenly want to watch it. If I cast my mind back to sometime in the early hours when I think I stumbled across such a trailer I knew that it was probably something that I'd end up loving but that I knew I would forget to watch, you see I'm rubbish at TV series, I always forget to watch them, or give up too soon before they really get good, and that is exactly what happened, the trailer came it went I forgot it had even made it into my brain. All before another glorious day of unemployment happened and if by magic, or the chance of BBC iPlayer flashing across my tv screen there she was, the girl from Pitch Perfect in that thing that I knew I'd love.
I'm not too sure what it is about romcoms, maybe it's growing up with Hugh Grant, reading Twilight 2 or 3 times and just genuinely hoping something might happen to me but I don't think I'll ever find one I don't like, yes, of course, there are some awful romantic comedies out there, but deep down they sit into 2 sections of my brain; films that I know are bad but make me feel good, and then films that are good but because they're romcoms are never really taken that seriously. I would say that Love Life is a mix between the two.
There are some genuinely good pieces of writing here, and there is just something about it that is real, you can see where the writer has asked his wife what 'real' female friendships are like and what we really have to go through. It was of course created by American writer Sam Boyd, I haven't watched his other credits, In a relationship or Flower, but from what I've seen from him this series follows a very similar style. When first watching it, it was very much a modern-day American Richard Curtis, and through no fault other than pure judgement I assumed it was written by a woman, which for me is to say a positive as the sense in which Boyd has been able to capture what a group of 20 something women living in New York might act like is pretty dam good, BUT... I would say that this is not something that I haven't seen before, and like I said above the romcoms will always have a special place in my heart but because of that, I feel as though I'm a good voice of reason on the subject. This is a storyline that has been seen time and time again with romance: the girl doesn't know what she wants so she stumbles from guy to guy with the help of a few friends, normally one who is settled and then other who just 'isn't really into relationships' working with these two until she either gets her dream job or finds the right guy. And of course, this works, but sometimes I would just like to see something a little different.
If I can look past the kind of obvious themes and the annoying casting of Anna Kendrick, which of course who am I kidding, I can then I would say that as a whole each individual episode stands very strongly on its own. Sam Boyd even though being the creator did not write all 10 stories so as you could imagine there's variety, and if we don't love variety in writing then why are we even here. Each 40 min episode is individual in the story and the way it approaches itself, so there is no worry of dramatic cliff hangers (if we ignore the end of episode 4) and no worry that if you go away and come back a week later you will 100% be able to pick right back up from where you left it. It's easy watching and perfect for a pandemic sized lazy day on the sofa. The series overall is a series that we see all the time come out of America; their mini-series' stuffed with romance on heat and a little real-life to make us feel as though we can connect to the faces on the screen. But for what was a very rainy gloomy day here in England this did just what I was hoping it would do; it cheered me up and made me feel even more single then I did before I watched it.
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